44 Scotland Street - Alexander McCall Smith [150]
Bruce looked down at the table and moved his fork slightly, to make it parallel with his knife, as an obsessive-compulsive might do. She means somebody like me, he thought. Well, if the point about all this is to see whether I’m available, the answer will have to be no. There are limits to what one should do in the line of duty.
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Confidences
“She’ll meet somebody,” he said airily. “Give her the space. Let her get on with it.”
“But she does nothing,” said Sasha. “How can she meet somebody suitable if she won’t go out with people? She needs to get into a group. You wouldn’t be able to introduce her . . .”
Bruce did not allow her to finish her sentence. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m very much involved with an American girl at the moment. I’m not really socialising in a crowd. I used to. But not now.”
For a few moments the disappointment registered on Sasha’s face, but she quickly recovered her composure. “Of course,” she said. “I hadn’t intended to ask you. I just wondered if you knew of anybody she might get to know. Parties, perhaps. That sort of thing.”
“Sorry,” said Bruce.
“Well, let’s not think about it any more. I’m sure you’re right. She’ll sort herself out. Now, what are you going to have?
Remember this is on me!”
They ordered their lunch, and a bottle of Chardonnay. They talked, easily, and in a friendly way. Sasha told a most amusing story about a scandal at her tennis club, and Bruce passed on a piece of office gossip which Todd had not mentioned to her –
something about one of the secretaries. Then they talked about plans for the summer.
“Raeburn was thinking of going to Portugal,” said Sasha. “We have friends with a villa there. It has a tennis court too.”
“I like tennis,” said Bruce. “I used to play a lot.”
“I bet you were a strong player,” said Sasha. She pictured him for a moment in tennis whites. His arms would be strong; his service hard to return.
“Moderately,” said Bruce. “I need to work on my backhand.”
“Don’t we all!” said Sasha. “But look at your wrists. They’re ideal for tennis. Look.”
She reached out and took hold of his wrist playfully. “Yes,”
she said. “A real tennis player’s wrist. You should keep up your game.”
It was at that point that Todd came in. He had arranged to meet a colleague from another firm for lunch, to discuss,
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very tentatively, a possible merger. He did not see this colleague, who was late, but he did see his wife, sitting at a table in the window, holding hands with that young man from the office.
For a moment he did not move. Bruce looked up, and saw him, and pulled his wrist away from Sasha’s grasp. She looked round in astonishment and saw Todd, who was beckoning to Bruce.
Bruce stood up, shocked. ‘I’ll explain to him,” he mumbled. Todd stared at Bruce as he came towards him. Very slowly, he lifted a hand and pointed directly at Bruce.
“You’re history,” he said quietly. “You’re history.”
“It’s not what you think,” said Bruce. “We were talking about tennis.”
Todd did not seem to hear this. “You have an hour to clear your desk,” hissed Todd. “You hear me? An hour.”
“You can’t dismiss people like that,” said Bruce, his voice faltering. “Not these days.”
“You listen to me,” said Todd. “Some time ago you did a survey of a flat and said that you had looked into the roof space. Well, I went and checked – and you hadn’t. You lied. I’ve been keeping that up my sleeve. You’re history.”
Bruce stood quite still. It was a strange feeling, being history. 108. Action Is Taken
One of Matthew’s problems, thought Pat, was that he seemed unwilling to make decisions. The way he had behaved over the Peploe? – now the non-Peploe – was an example of his chronic lack of decisiveness. Had it not been for the fact that Big Lou had met Guy Peploe, with the result that Matthew had been pushed into action, it was doubtful whether they would have identified the painting as being by somebody other than Peploe. Nor would they have discovered that it was probably an overpainting. That had been established by Guy Peploe himself, who had spotted